S.R. Bhatt Indian Council of Philosophical
Research, New Delhi.
Knowledge (true cognition) is no doubt the most central
and significant concept in epistemology, but it cannot be treated as the
most primitive
epistemic unit.
Like many other phenomena, cognitive and non-cognitive, knowledge also is very
complex in nature and is reducible to its simpler elements or units. There
are several epistemic elements and attitudes, which go in the making of knowledge
and unless these diverse components are analyzes and distinguished, we cannot
claim to have known knowledge. Simple cognition of object is a
precondition of all complex cognitions of its different contents and relations.